Paradise Lost – Medusa (Review)

After recently reviewing the reissue of Paradise Lost’s seminal 1997 album One Second, it’s somewhat appropriate that I now catch up with their latest album Medusa, released twenty years later.

Never ones to rest on their laurels and stagnate, Paradise Lost are a band that have always looked to change their sound in some way or other from one album to the next. Sometimes this is a subtle shift, while at others it’s a wholesale change in direction.

Whereas One Second saw the band exploring Gothic rock with great success, it might surprise the 1997 Paradise Lost that twenty years later they would have largely returned to the stripped-back heavier sounds of their earlier work.

Heavy, death/doom-laden Gothic metal is the order of business here, and it’s clear that the band have lost none their talent for this kind of thing. Style-wise, Medusa probably sits somewhere between Gothic and Shades of God, with a touch of Icon. However, the album is not without elements of their later work; it’s not as if the band have totally reverted to the old-school, as Medusa keeps some of the more atmospheric and textured aspects of their work from the last couple of decades, making for an extremely well-rounded and satisfying listen.

Paradise Lost have effectively taken the death/doom style that they helped define and establish all those many moons ago and updated it with a 2017 Gothic metal delivery. For me it works horrendously well, and Medusa is an extremely strong addition to the band’s already impressive discography.

It’s an impressive feat that almost 30 years into their existence the band can still produce an album as good as this.